Purpose: This paper aims to provide a critical analysis of the European Commissions and the member states attempts to introduce a European Qualifications Framework and national frameworks respectively. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a review of policies and substantive desk research in countries that have applied a…

Over the past decade higher education reforms in most European countries have been oriented towards creating a European Higher Education Area which is envisaged in the "Bologna Declaration." Based on an illustration of a variety of difficulties encountered higher education institutions in a wide range of participating countries, this…

In this article, the author offers an analysis of the Bologna process that draws from Foucault's theory. The author focuses on the objectives and orientations of the process and explains why the process was originally initiated. By mobilizing the concept of "episteme" and "legitimacy", the author highlights the role of the…

This issue and the winter 2007-2008 issue (vol. 39, no. 4) of "European Education" address the implications of competition for the future of European higher education. Studies bear on the initiatives taken over the past few years in Europe to enhance the harmonization of European higher education systems and particularly the Bologna…

The first-ever U. S. Department of Education summit on sustainability, "Sustainability Education Summit: Citizenship and Pathways for a Green Economy," was held on Sept. 20-21, 2010, in Washington, D.C. The Sustainability Education Summit (the Summit) brought together leaders from higher education, business and industry, labor,…

Since 29 European ministers of higher education announced the Bologna declaration in 1999, the Bologna reform has spread to all parts of Europe. The number of participating countries has grown to 46. In other words, most European countries have joined the Bologna process, which is to form a "European higher education area" (EHEA) by…

Changes in higher education in Hungary are strongly related to those in the economic and social environment. Since the change of the political system in the late 1980s, Hungarian economic development has been marked by periods of contraction and expansion. Notwithstanding this process, influenced in part by the state's imposition of restrictive…

In 2000, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched the programme "Learning Regions--Providing Support for Networks'" in cooperation with the Lander. It was co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). Some 90 regions were selected and financially supported. After one year, 71 regions continued to build-up…

This is a report of the third meeting of the Mediterranean Comparative Education Society (MESCE) that took place in Malta in May 2008. The full programme can be accessed at: http://www.educ.um.edu.mt/mesce/cprogramme.html. The conference was attended by around 130 people from different countries in the Mediterranean and beyond but concentrated,…

This article focuses on the changing nature of education governance in Europe. It looks at the shifting discourses and policy practices in the ways in which the European Commission has aligned itself to education and discusses the reasons for what is presented as a substantial shift in the tools and resources for governing the European education…

American regional accreditation serves two basic functions: quality assurance and quality improvement. Through its public function of quality assurance, accreditation signals to prospective students, parents, employers, and others that the institution meets fundamental standards of quality. Through its private function of quality improvement,…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to look closely at the development of a European Credit Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET). The European Commission, together with the member States, are working on it and several pilot projects have been initiated within the Leonardo da Vinci Programme of the European Commission.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the development of a European architecture of vocational education and promote an alternative proposal. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is the result of discussions of researchers in the Institut Technik und Bildung on a European Qualification Framework. Findings: The paper provides an…

In this paper, the author discusses the adoption of the Western Enlightenment paradigm in East European higher education. It is important to note that while postsocialist transition slowed toward the late 1990s, change in East European higher education has been strongly influenced by creating the European higher education area, or the Bologna…